Tomorrow’s Children: Phoenix Edition is aptly named, born from the ashes of the short-lived version of the original. Much like the game we remember from 2016, this iteration stripped away the free-to-play structure, introduced new features, and updated the experience in many ways. Whether those changes are enough to make his game shine in 2022 is another matter.
For more information, read our original Tomorrow’s Children review. Cliff’s notes, however: Team up with other players online to step into the Void to save what’s left of humanity by finding Matryoshka dolls and reviving them into town. , and rebuild society with the collected resources. The presentation of the game was great, and the co-op nature of the gameplay was interesting, but in the end it felt too slow, stiff, and sluggish. Frankly, all of this applies to Phoenix Edition as well, but the effort to smooth things out makes it easier to recommend than it used to be.
Improved onboarding means you can get to grips with the basics better, and new tools like the grappling hook and special Void powers make exploring the island a little easier and generally progress a little faster. Monoliths on certain islands expand in area when touched by enough players, giving even more resources to discover. Playing on PS5 backwards compatibility looks great and runs perfectly at 60 frames per second. Perhaps the best part is the peer-to-peer online play and offline mode, which eliminates the threat of another server shutting down.
Unfortunately, the game’s problems lie a little deeper. As with the 2016 version, the gameplay is stiff, slow, rather boring, and sometimes it’s hard to know exactly how to proceed. Inventory space is almost always a headache. Building a town is hard work. This may be intentional, but it’s not very fun. Especially when giant monsters roam around aimlessly and destroy buildings. Fighting back can feel futile and not particularly satisfying, as the collaborative, shared-goal nature has a lot of potential, and the Phoenix Edition actually brings a lot of improvements to the overall experience. , it’s hard, but its cold, repetitive core holds it back.
